Hannibal Producer To Steer CBS’ “Star Trek”

In a truly brilliant piece of news, “Hannibal” creator and showrunner Bryan Fuller is set to return to the “Star Trek” franchise has been named as show runner of the upcoming new “Star Trek” TV series being produced by CBS’ All Access streaming service.

Fuller got his start on “Star Trek” back in the late 1990s, working on episodes of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and “Star Trek: Voyager” before going on to create his own shows like “Pushing Daisies,” “Dead Like Me” and more recently “Hannibal” and HBO’s upcoming “American Gods”. In an official statement, Fuller says:

“My very first experience of Star Trek is my oldest brother turning off all the lights in the house and flying his model of a D7 Class Klingon Battle Cruiser through the darkened halls. Before seeing a frame of the television series, the Star Trek universe lit my imagination on fire. It is without exaggeration a dream come true to be crafting a brand-new iteration of Star Trek with fellow franchise alum Alex Kurtzman and boldly going where no Star Trek series has gone before.”

Fuller will join executive producer Alex Kurtzman, who worked on the two previous J.J. Abrams-directed “Star Trek” films, on the project which is currently targeting a January 2017 premiere on the digital subscription service. It will be the first original series to launch on a broadcast network but air primarily on an SVOD service.

The plan is for the series to focus on new characters and civilizations, stepping outside the mythology charted by previous series and the current movie franchises and thus avoiding the confusing state of the franchise’s canon caused by the ‘reset’ with Abrams’ first film in 2009.

Fuller and Michael Green will continue to work on “American Gods” which begins production in Toronto in April.